When Night Falls

2012. China. Directed by Ying Liang. Through his four narrative features and numerous shorts, Ying Liang utilizes low-budget digital video and observational documentary techniques to produce withering portraits of ordinary Chinese caught in webs of injustice. Inspired by the 2008 case of a young man’s murder of six Shanghai police officers, Ying’s newest feature focuses on the killer’s mother, whose own life is thrown into disarray by both the brutality of the criminal justice system and the netizens who oppose it. Uncommonly attentive to its mostly mute heroine, the film is a quiet plea for humanism amid forces that breed its opposite. Courtesy of the Jeonju International Film Festival. In Mandarin; English subtitles. 70 min.

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